Bonus Summit Content: How can embracing smoking harm reduction accelerate an increase in smoking cessation in the population?

Sadly, Dr Cummings is unable to join the Summit in D.C., as he has been called as an expert witness.  However, he kindly agreed to record his presentation, as he is keen to hear people’s thoughts on the initiative outlined in it.  You can use the App to ask questions and to comment.

In this presentation, Dr Cummings describes plans to test whether a community intervention trial focused on smoking harm reduction can increase smoking cessation in a high-poverty, high-smoking-prevalence rural community in South Carolina. The intervention includes a multi-pronged set of activities to promote smoking cessation and switching to FDA-authorized smoke-free tobacco, including mass-media campaigns and events at worksites, schools, faith groups, and healthcare institutions. A component of the intervention also involves asking tobacco product manufacturers to voluntarily support the smoking harm reduction intervention by expanding their marketing of FDA-authorized smoke-free products in the intervention county, while simultaneously agreeing to limit the promotion of smokeable tobacco products. Many questions remain unanswered about the feasibility of the intervention, such as whether public health groups are willing to partner with industry; whether industry will agree to voluntarily implement strategies to promote smoke-free products as substitutes for cigarettes; whether local tobacco retailers and vape shops will support the intervention; how the restriction to only FDA-authorised vaping products will work; and whether there is a need to assess the uptake of smoke-free products by non-tobacco users, including teenagers.